Duality
by DOKChairman
Summary: Vaughn thinks about life-and Sydney-after the end of Counteragent.


**Title:** Duality

**Author:** DOKChairman

**Time:** After episode 2.7 Counteragent

**Disclaimer:** For those of you who believe I own Alias, you're right.  In an alternate reality, that is.  Unfortunately, in this reality, Bad Robot Productions and J.J. Abrams own Alias.  I am nothing but a penniless college student with delusions of grandeur.  So if you sue me the only thing you will get is pocket lint and maybe a spare pair of socks I have lying around.

**Author's Note:** I have wanted to write an Alias fanfic for a long time, but never got up the nerve.  However, after seeing the last episode, I've had this idea bouncing around my head and I just needed to write it down.  So here it is.  Love it, hate it, I don't really care.  I'm only writing it for my own personal reasons, and plan on making it a stand-alone.  So no sequels.  Not that you necessarily want one, but just in case, I'm clarifying my position.

**Author's Note:** Just in case you can't tell, this story is in Vaughn's point of view.  After seeing Counteragent, the character of Vaughn was cemented for all time as my favorite character on Alias.  I mean the man has to be the most straight-laced and morally upright character I've seen on TV in a long time.  I mean the guy dresses in a freaking suit before going to the doctor.  A suit!  If that ain't dedication then I don't know what is.  I just had to write about him.

Duality

            I hate Sydney Bristow.  I really do.

            Unfortunately for me, I love her as well.  It's a strange felling, to hate the thing that you love, but I can't help how I feel.

            I hate her because of how she makes me feel.  Before I met her, my life was relatively simple.  As simple as working for the CIA that is, but still, my life was normal.  I had a girlfriend that I thought I loved, a good job, and friends and family that I loved.  I still have all those things of course, but since she came into my life, none of them have been simple.

            I try to tell myself that she's worth it, and deep down, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she is, but it can be so hard sometimes.  Before I met her, I would have never dreamed of having to face death twice in only one month.  Don't get me wrong, I don't blame her for what happened, I made the choice after all to follow her to Taipei, but if I had never met her I would have never had to make that choice.

            If I had never met her, I would not have to face the woman who murdered my father on a daily basis.  If I had never met her, my relationship with Alice would probably still be going strong.  If I had never met her, I would not have to know the pain of loving something I can never have.  If I had never met her, I would be dead.

            Not dead in the literal sense of course, but I know that I would be dead in the only sense that counts to me.  I would be dead inside, a shell of the man that I could become.  Despite the many regrets that I have about knowing Sydney, they are all balanced out by the simple fact that she makes me feel alive.

            Every second that I am around her, every time I see her smile, or see her determination, or her loyalty to those she cares about most, I feel alive.  She makes me want to be a better man.  She makes me want to strive to be her friend, confidant, and, I'm not afraid to admit this to myself, but her lover as well.  That's not to say I only want her because I think she's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, because I don't.  There's just something about her that makes me want to protect her at all costs, even though she could easily crush any man with one hand tied behind her back.

            Its that quality that I hate most though.  She consumes my life.  There is not an hour that goes by in the day that I don't think of her at least once.  It was because of my obsession with Sydney that led to Alice and I breaking up for the first time.  She knew that when we were together, I was thinking of some one else.  And as much as a bad person as that makes me, she's right.

            Unfortunately, I'm doing it again.  When I saw Alice for the first time after our breakup, I saw an opportunity.  An opportunity to finally distance myself from Sydney.  I knew I could do it, hell I wanted to do it.  And for a while I thought I had.  But I was a fool to think that I could just make my feelings for Sydney disappear by getting involved with Alice again.

            I knew the second I saw Sydney's face when I told her about Alice, how stupid I had been.  The look of disappointment and betrayal that I saw in her eyes crushed me.  And I hated her even more.

            I wanted to shout at her that she had no right to act like she was.  A part of me wanted to say that now she knows how I felt when I heard about her and Noah, or how much it hurts every time I see her and Will together.  But I couldn't.  I knew that she was right to feel that way, because I felt that way as well.  I felt like I had betrayed myself, and I wanted to justify to Sydney why I was with Alice.

            I don't know what I would have said if she had let me explain, but I had to tell her, as much as I needed to tell myself, why Alice and I were back together.  I wanted to tell her that I was trying to live a normal life, and as much as I want to love her, as much as I do love her, I can't.

            I tried to do the same thing with Sydney's mother, but she hadn't bought my reasons either.  It was an amazing thing really, how unbelievably perceptive she was.  If she hadn't murdered my father, I knew that I would be absolutely fascinated by her.  How she managed to pick up how I felt about her daughter, I'll never know.  But I guess it isn't that hard.  The simple fact that I don't avoid Sydney like the Plague because her mother killed my father, has got to be a big tip off that I have more than just handler-type feelings for Sydney.

            Not that my feelings matter.  They don't.  As I tried to explain to Irina, protocol prevents it.  I know that it seems kind of hypocritical considering everything that I have done for Sydney, hiding behind the guise of protocol, but crossing that boundary is something that I just can't do.  

            I have structured my entire life around following the rules.  Protocol means something to me.  I know that it's the biggest wall between Sydney and I beginning an actual relationship, but it is so much a part of my life that I can't just dismiss it.  Just like Sydney won't give up on stopping SD-6, I can't just stop being who I am.  My job is my life, and it is the closest thing I have to being with my father.

            My father.  He was the reason why I was in the CIA to begin with.  I didn't join so that I could avenge his death, but I joined to pay homage to a man who was my hero in life as well as in death.  He made the ultimate sacrifice to protect his country and those things he believed in, and I wanted, and I want, to be just like him.  I want to avoid the dying part of course, but death doesn't scare me, not much anyway.

            I know that following the rules helped to destroy my father, which is why I went with Sydney to Taipei.  I wanted to rebel, for however brief amount of time, against the rules that had so governed my life.  

Which I think is the real reason why I don't want to break protocol.  Not because of what could happen to me, but because of what could happen to Sydney.  I would never be able to live with myself if something ever happened to her because we broke protocol to be together.  I would rather suffer in the dark, alone, and empty, than see her harmed because of how I feel.  I would rather push her away and love her from afar.

And I hate her because of it.

P.S.  I was just curious.  Did anyone else laugh out loud when AD Kendall said that the CIA is not in the habit of killing people?


End file.
